Illusions of Innocence
by baby-filly
Summary: The Akatsuki was hardly the place Haruno Sakura had expected to find comfort, but when you've lost everything, anything is possible. ItaSaku.
1. Tourniquet

**Illusions of Innocence**

**Chapter One – Tourniquet**

_**Just to give you all a warning before we begin: this story is rated M due to infrequent (when Hidan's not around) swearing, a little gore and lemon. **_

"Itachi! Hey, Itachi, wait up, un!" Deidara jumped out in front of Uchiha Itachi, who had to work ever so slightly harder than usual to keep his composure. He arched an ebony eyebrow at the out-of-breath shinobi in front of him.

"Hm?"

"You have to come, see; I'm trying to find Konan but she isn't around, and we're all shit-scared she'll yell at us because of _her_ and us being men and all that, but _she'll_ die if we don't do something right now and we don't know what to do." Deidara paused for breath, before adding "un," weakly to the end of his garbled monologue. It wasn't often that his speech quirk sounded forced. Itachi's eyebrow was halfway up his forehead by this time, but he gave no other indication of his confusion.

"Start again – slowly. Who is this _she_ you mentioned who is going to die?"

"This girl me and Hidan -"

"Hidan and I." Itachi interrupted smoothly. Deidara scowled.

"Fine. This girl _Hidan and I_ found in the woods. She looks real bad, like she's been beaten up by…well, by a bunch of dangerous S-ranks, un. She's unconscious."

"Then let her die." Itachi shrugged. It wasn't difficult. He was actually quite surprised at Deidara's concern. He turned, ready to continue on towards his room as he had been planning to when Deidara had ambushed him. Deidara sighed.

"But…she's from _Konoha_."

Itachi turned, the barest hint of interest written on his features. "Konoha? Are you sure?"

"Yeah…well, she has a Konoha headband with her, and Kisame says he thinks you'll recognise her, but he won't tell me or Hidan who she is."

"Fine, I'll come." Itachi stalked off in the direction Deidara had come from, heading for the Akatsuki base's medical room. Deidara scurried along behind him, muttering unintelligibly under his breath. Itachi didn't even bother to enquire as to what he was saying. He didn't care. He was too busy mulling over the possibility of useful information from the 'dying' Konoha kunoichi.

Reaching the medical room, Deidara took a deep breath, as though steeling himself. Itachi almost rolled his eyes at the theatrics, and pushed the door open with one hand, striding into the medical room with an aura that would have had most normal people cowering under tables.

"Itachi!" Kisame sounded mildly relieved, and the tiniest bit amused. Itachi fixed him with a dark look. Unperturbed by his partner's death glare, Kisame gestured to the table in the centre of the room. Itachi walked over to examine the figure lying lifelessly on said table. She _was_ a state, that much was true. Her headband, red rather than the conventional blue, was tied above a deep laceration on her thigh like a tourniquet. Itachi turned to the three other shinobi in the room, Deidara, Kisame and Hidan.

"And _none_ of you had the foresight to remove this binding?" He pointed to the headband, the faintest hint of disbelief laced into his words. "If she were not a kunoichi with the unusual ability to manipulate chakra even as unconscious and injured as this, she would have died due to blood circulation cut-off." Hidan muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a profanity. Deidara paled.

"She isn't going to die, is she?" He asked, obviously worried about their leader's reaction to such news.

"Probably not." Itachi said, sounding as though he couldn't care less. He untied the bloodied headband and dropped it to the floor. Deidara picked it up silently. "Hn…" Itachi studied the female for a few seconds. "I know her."

"And?" Kisame asked eagerly. "Am I right?"

"For once, Kisame, yes." Itachi replied. "I think, underneath this mud…and the blood, of course…" He trailed off. "Get some lukewarm water." His command wasn't aimed at anyone in particular, but it was Deidara who hurried over to the sink, after being elbowed in the ribs by Kisame. Deidara carried the water over to Itachi. The Uchiha prodigy didn't even raise an eyebrow at the cheap bucket it was contained in. The Akatsuki's medical room was not the best-equipped, and its main 'medic' (Zetsu) wasn't particularly qualified. _That could be changing, _Itachi thought dryly. "Where is Zetsu?" He asked as he pointed Deidara towards a cupboard for a sponge. Deidara gave a small huff as he retrieved an off-white sponge for the Uchiha.

"He went out looking for herbs this morning. Won't be back until later." Kisame told Itachi, who nodded in acknowledgment of the explanation, but did not answer.

"So are you going to tell us who the little bi…kunoichi is?" Hidan asked irritably. Kisame smirked, evidently pleased with his own knowledge.

"Patience, Hidan." Itachi said, taking the blue sponge from Deidara and dipping it into the bucket of water. He squeezed the excess water out of the sponge and began wiping the dirt and blood from the girl's hair. Hidan and Deidara craned their necks to get a better look at the girl.

After a few seconds, Deidara sucked in a breath.

"No _freaking_ way, un. No freaking way do we have the Hokage's apprentice here!" He frowned. "It isn't an impersonator?" But he knew it couldn't be. Any illusion would have slipped with the kunoichi's current, dangerously low chakra signature. But he also couldn't quite bring himself to believe that the near-legendary Haruno Sakura had fallen into their hands. Albeit, covered in wounds, blood and dirt and close to death, but even so.

"She will be useful to the Akatsuki's knowledge of Konoha." Itachi said, his tone without inflection.

"Too right she will. But…what the hell happened to her?" Kisame wondered out loud. Itachi shook his head slightly.

"I don't know."

This admission surprised everyone else in the room. Uchiha Itachi _always _knew the answers.

Itachi discarded the sponge on the table Sakura lay on, and studied her injuries as best he could. There was no way to ascertain the full extent of the damage without removing her clothing, and whilst Itachi had no qualms about this, he had the feeling his fellow Akatsuki members would. He supposed a good place to start would be the gaping hole in Sakura's thigh that she had tied with her headband. It was still gushing blood, whereas most of the other wounds had begun clotting, and were more superficial in any case.

"Um, Itachi, I don't mean to like, disrespect your amazing superpowers or anything, un," Deidara began nervously, "But, uh, do you actually know any medical jutsu?"

"Not a great deal." Itachi replied, before turning his full attention to the bleeding kunoichi. Kisame, Deidara and Hidan could do nothing more than watch as Itachi's hands glowed light green. They all wondered how Itachi had learnt _any_ medical jutsu at all, but none dared to disturb the focused Uchiha genius with something so trivial as a question.

Of course, Itachi's idea of "not a great deal" was "quite a lot, actually" to most shinobi. He managed to heal the wound sufficiently, and ascertain that Haruno Sakura had a few broken ribs and a fractured ankle. Then he stood back to look at the kunoichi herself. The girl he had ties to, albeit faded and distant. She was pale and skeletally thin. Much thinner than he remembered from the last time they had met. Her hair was the same candyfloss pink colour, though. He had heard she could open craters in the ground with one fist, but she had seemed to be just another weak, frightened, materialistic kunoichi when his high-level clone had fought with two of her team mates. Of course, that was just under three years ago now. She had been with that Sand elder, just standing around uselessly, more of a burden to her team than a help.

He recalled that she had killed Sasori shortly after that meeting. He supposed the old woman, Sasori's grandmother, had done the majority of the work in _that_ battle.

"Hey! Is anyone here? Anyone?"

All the shinobi in the cramped medical room turned to look at the door, behind which the slightly-anxious voice of Konan could be heard. Deidara was the first to move, pulling the door open and bolting into the hallway.

"Konan!" He said, the greeting not fully expressing the heartfelt relief her appearance had given him. She was a woman. She'd know how to deal with the whole bizarre situation.

"Hey, what's wrong? Why are you all in the medical room? Is someone hurt?"

"Not one of _us_," Deidara shifted his weight from one foot to another, adding, "Well…I guess you'd best see for yourself, un."

Konan followed Deidara bemusedly into the medical room, which was beginning to reek heavily of blood. Nobody really _noticed_ this. They were Akatsuki: they could handle most things with ease. Nevertheless, Konan's nose wrinkled involuntarily as she stepped over the threshold. She completely ignored Kisame and Deidara, heading straight for Itachi and the table on which the prone figure of Haruno Sakura lay, lifeless but for her shallow breathing.

Konan drew in a breath. Itachi watched shock, disgust and pity flicker across Pein's partner's face, and he remained silent. He did not comment when Konan's hand reached out, her face somehow clouded with the undoubted pain Haruno Sakura would have been experiencing were she conscious. Her hand wavered slightly, and she brushed a few strands of pink hair away from Sakura's face.

"She has a fever." Konan said finally, turning away from Sakura, her voice flat and steady.

"Lukewarm water and another sponge, Deidara." Itachi ordered smoothly. Deidara didn't even protest at being made the general dogsbody this time.

"Do we have any intravenous drips?" Konan looked around the room. Every look but Itachi's was completely blank. The Uchiha shook his head. "Apparently not." Konan sighed, resigning herself to inadequate medical equipment and being surrounded by utter morons who didn't even know what an IV was.

"There's something not right." Konan frowned. Itachi paused as he was about to take the sponge and water off Deidara. He studied Sakura's body for a good few seconds, before pushing up Sakura's battered red shirt, ignoring Deidara's gasp – it wasn't like he was _violating_ the girl: he was saving her life.

"There." He said simply. Konan gave a strangled hiss which she turned into a cough. Deidara's expression darkened. Hidan and Kisame stepped forwards simultaneously to see what all the fuss was about.

They quickly understood. Daubed on Sakura's abdomen with her own blood, above a deep, hollow cut that was still bleeding copiously was a symbol that was never a pleasant sight, even for Akatsuki, and least of all in their current situation.

"Torture." Hidan, the Akatsuki's resident sadistic torturer confirmed what everyone had already known. "I've never seen those exact symbols before, though," He admitted after a moment, looking at the lines with unconcealed fascination and frustration at not recognising the symbol. He, Kisame and Deidara missed the frown that crossed Itachi's face for a fraction of a second, but Konan was sharper.

"Itachi?"

Itachi shook his head.

"What is it, Itachi?" Hidan's curiosity was immediately piqued.

"I don't know for certain, and besides, it's _her _story." He gestured to Sakura.

"Who fucking cares? Tell us!" Hidan said, but Itachi studiously ignored him, taking the sponge and water from Deidara's hands and passing them to Konan.

"Gauze, Deidara." He commanded in a voice that indicated he wanted no more questions asked of him. Deidara dived for the pitiful supply of bandages at the other end of the room, seemingly wanting to be away from the sheer danger radiating from Itachi.

Itachi and Konan bandaged Sakura's stomach wound and wiped the blood symbol off her skin. Konan sponged Sakura's forehead, hoping to reduce her fever by a few degrees. Finally, she stood back with a nod of assent.

"I don't really want to move her, but she can't stay here." Her gaze fell on Itachi. He gave a small nod of acknowledgment, and lifted Haruno Sakura lightly, before striding from the medical room, Kisame following in his wake.

**XOXOX**

"No, I swear I didn't. I didn't! No, stop…"

Itachi flicked on the light switch next to the chair he was sitting in, and looked over to Sakura, whose whimpering and sleep-talking had been going on for several hours.

At that moment, hazy jade eyes flickered open, then closed again. Itachi shifted his weight to the left of the chair, waiting. He was not disappointed. The disjointed, piercing scream that came from the tiny kunoichi was probably loud enough to have woken the entire Akatsuki. It certainly had Kisame scrambling out of bed, muttering sleepily:

"What? Where's the fir? What time is it? Oh." He caught sight of Sakura, and the eyes that were open again now, looking around the room restlessly. Itachi was pretty sure she didn't actually understand what was going on or what company she was in.

"She's just dreaming." Itachi told Kisame, who scowled.

"Don't we all wish we were dreaming. In bed. Asleep." He clambered back into his bed and pulled the covers over his head.

"Thank you for the support, Kisame." Itachi remarked dryly.

"Support?" Kisame's muffled voice said with a laugh. "You're Uchiha Itachi. You need my support as much as I need to stay awake giving it to you."

A moment later, Itachi was listening to the shark man snoring. He sighed and reached up, flicking the light switch down and closing his eyes, ready to sit out the night in darkness alongside his deranged, deeply asleep team mate and a tortured, near-unconscious Leaf ninja who happened to despise him because his little brother had been her team mate and childhood crush.

It was at times like these that Uchiha Itachi felt glad that he was an emotionless bastard.

**XOXOX**

**I wrote a new story! And it's ItaSaku!**

**Please R&R: what do you think so far? The good and the bad, but please don't flame the pairing. All ideas about the story are welcome, but please don't be offended if I don't use them.**

**I was speed-typing because I (and my best friend) really wanted the first chapter to be out today, so feel free to let me know of any glaring mistakes.**

**Besides all that, updates should be once a week, if not more frequently. **

**Thanks for reading! Until next time. 3**


	2. The Nightmare Realm

**Illusions of Innocence**

**Chapter Two – The Nightmare Realm**

_**All that I'm wanted for,**_

_**Although I wanted more,**_

_**Lock the last open door,**_

_**My ghosts are gaining on me.**_

"Ugh..." Sakura groaned as she awoke, but it took a few seconds for anything to come back to her. Her first thoughts were that the last fortnight had been some sick, twisted nightmare her over-exhausted imagination had come up with. _When I wake up, I'll be in my bed and... _Sakura's thoughts were cut off abruptly as the pain hit her frail body.

Sakura's instinctive reaction was to sit bolt upright, but she reined the impulse in. She could feel that her ankle was broken, and so were a few of her ribs. The last thing she needed right now was to puncture a lung.

Thinking about "everything else" make Sakura's blood run cold. What if she was still _there_? What if she had only dreamt she'd escaped, or they'd recaptured her? She didn't want to open her eyes to find out, so terrified was she that _they_ were still around, just waiting for her regain consciousness again. Although she could feel gauze over her stomach, and the bad wound just above her knee had been healed, her ribs and ankle had not been addressed and she was in the same clothes she had been in for the past two weeks or so.

Slowly, reluctantly, but knowing that it was now or never, Sakura opened her eyes, ignoring the way everything in her line of vision spun and distorted. Relief rushed through her entire body as she realised she did not recognise the room she was currently in. Then, she tensed. They could just have moved her to a different location. They could still be hiding, laying in wait for her, ready to come back even worse than before. If that was even possible.

Sakura didn't realise that she was shaking violently until a few minutes later. Even as she became aware of herself, she could not stop.

At that precise moment, the door creaked open. Sakura opened her mouth to scream, but her vocal chords were paralysed. She could hear her heart pounding, and the blood rushing wildly through her head. It blocked out all rational thought.

"What's up with her, un?" She heard a male voice call out, but neither the words nor the voice itself registered in her mind. Her breathing had become faster, and she took desperate gasps for air, willing herself to fight, to scream out, to be heard. She continued hyperventilating.

"Hey, hey!"

"Come on, un! Snap out of it!"

"She's not going to fucking die, is she?"

The voice blurred into one, the words cancelling each other out and becoming meaningless to her. Only one word stood out over the rest of them, spoken in a clear voice that radiated ice and authority.

"Sakura."

Slowly, her vision began to clear, and her breathing slowed, quietening at the same time. She stared at the four men in front of her, only one of whom was supposed to be alive. The one who had spoken was the one she had always feared the most – the subject of horror stories told to young children, the stuff of nightmares. Uchiha Itachi.

"A-am I d-dead?" Sakura managed to choke out after a few moments of confused thoughts.

"No." Itachi replied in his ice-cold voice. _But you'll wish you were soon enough._ Was it Sakura's overwrought emotions, her over-reacting imagination, or were those the words he implied? Although she was scared of facing a fresh ordeal at the hands of the worst criminal organisation in the shinobi lands, she couldn't bring herself to be as terrified by them as perhaps she should have been. _Even the Akatsuki can't be as bad as the others, surely? _Sakura thought to herself. If she had been in a better frame of mind, she might have thought: _If the others were bad, what could Akatsuki do to me?_

But her mind was exhausted. She was tired of everything, tired of her very life. She honestly didn't care at that moment if the Akatsuki wanted to kill her, just so long as they did it quickly. But if they wanted to kill her...

"Why – why have you started to heal me?" She asked, the thought coming to her suddenly.

"Konan can tell you about that." Again, it was the Uchiha who answered her. Was he their spokesman? Or was it that intimidating aura emanating from his very being that kept them quiet? Weak and tired as she was, Sakura could sense the dangerous energy of the mass-murderer, but that and even the knowledge of what he'd done in the past combined could not make her summon up the will to hate him.

She _did _hate him. She knew that as sure as she knew her eyes were green and her hair was pink. But right there, looking at him properly for the first time, she couldn't feel even an ounce of loathing towards him. _I will,_ Sakura vowed. _If I survive this, if I recover, I'll hate him so much he won't know what's hit him. _It was strange how she could manage to think such a trivial thought as that, with the more serious ones jostling for top position inside her pounding head.

She tried to focus on the matter at hand. The matter of her survival. She didn't want to die anymore. She couldn't die. All that she had now was the knowledge of the sacrifice her team had made...and all for her. She couldn't waste that precious gift they'd given her. The gift of life.

It was then that Sakura asked possibly the most important question yet. "If I'm alive, then why aren't you dead?" Her voice was a little steadier, less of a drowsy tremor running through it this time. Itachi looked at her, and she met his eyes. She saw something behind the bleak crimson – a kind-of surprise masked by the lack of emotions. She remembered that she had been afraid to look at him that day they had met, almost three years ago now. Was he perhaps surprised that she had looked him in eye? She brushed that theory away as soon as it formed. What did it matter anyway? She was probably seeing things. She tried to concentrate, and wondered why it was so difficult to do so.

"Time will uncover the answers you seek, Sakura." Itachi said after a moment.

"What he means is that he can't be bothered telling you." Kisame put in, speaking directly to her for the first time. Itachi shot a glare at the blue-skinned man, who grinned back without a hint of remorse.

Sakura frowned. These criminals weren't quite what she'd expected. They probably didn't want to kill her, or they would have completed the task a long while ago. But if they weren't going to murder her, what did they want? Sakura felt that there was something her confused mind was missing out.

"Oh, Sakura, you're awake!"

Sakura turned her head to the feminine voice that greeted her like an old friend. It belonged to a woman of about five foot five with blue hair in a bun with a flower that appeared to be made from paper. Konan. Sakura managed to remember the woman's name from the Akatsuki roster she had read not so long ago. Her head was beginning to spin, and she honestly couldn't remember whether this Akatsuki was meant to be six feet under or not. Sakura tried to take a deep, calming breath, but ended up coughing.

Konan walked over to the couch Sakura lay on. "How much chakra do you have?" She asked in the same kind tone she'd used when addressing Sakura before. Sakura looked at her for a few seconds as she processed the question.

"Enough to maybe stand up and perhaps walk a few steps." She tried to be realistic. Konan nodded.

"Understandable, after all those injuries." She said, a hint of the same pain Itachi had seen the previous day on her features. It disappeared before Sakura could even register it as an emotion.

"I couldn't realistically walk though..." Sakura muttered, the medic in her taking over for a minute. "Not with my ankle fractured."

Again, Konan nodded. "No worries. Now, I'm sorry we didn't heal your ankle and your ribs, but unfortunately we don't really know that much medical jutsu. Zetsu said he'd bring a painkiller or two, though."

Sakura abruptly realised exactly why it was that she couldn't concentrate on things as she should have been – pain. The same excruciating agony was tearing through her body as it had the moment she had woken up, but it seemed that with the shock of meeting the Akatsuki, she had pushed it to the recesses of her mind. Now it was coming back with a vengeance, and it was only the thought of appearing weak in front of the Akatsuki that prevented her from crying out. As it was, a small hiss escaped her lips. It got Itachi staring at her again, his sharingan boring into the side of her head.

"Speaking of Zetsu," Konan said as though to herself, "Where is he?"

As if on cue, the door opened again. Stupid as she knew it was, Sakura still felt her heart spasm in fear of it being one of her torturers entering the room. That particular fear was soon dispelled as she set eyes on Zetsu. He was the man her team mate Naruto had called "spiky aloe man", or something to that effect, when they had come across him and Uchiha Madara on the hunt for Sasuke. He was the one who had informed Madara of Itachi's death. And yet Itachi was evidently as alive as the rest of them. It didn't make any sense to her whatsoever.

Zetsu was holding a clear plastic beaker half-filled with a murky blue-tinted liquid that Sakura identified as a herbal painkiller. Having never used it herself, she had no idea whether it worked, but she hoped to Kami above that it did. She doubted if the strongest painkiller known to shinobi would numb her mental anguish, but perhaps it would help her forget the stabbing feeling she had all over her body.

Zetsu handed the medicine over to Konan, averting his eyes from Sakura's form.

"I made it specially. _**So you'd best drink it all**_**.**"

Sakura gaped at him. The way he'd spoken, his voice changing on the second sentence...it was like he was two completely different people. It unsettled her a little, and she found herself glad of the fact that it was Konan who came closer to pass her the plastic cup. As it exchanged hands, Sakura kept her hands well away from Konan. She didn't know what it was bothering her – or rather, she didn't _want_ to know what it was bothering her – but she didn't want anyone to touch her. Even a woman.

The two Akatsuki who'd been the quietest so far, Deidara and Hidan, she thought, watched her intently, although both pretended to look bored, Hidan putting on a better act than the blond missing-nin. Sakura was still acutely aware of Uchiha Itachi's presence, and as she drank the herbal remedy, she began to think a little more carefully about exactly who these people were, and what each one of the S-rank criminals in the room with her had done in the past, and would do in the future.

Perhaps the moment of overwhelming clarity should have come earlier, but as soon as she fully

realised the situation she was in, she felt salty tears slipping down her face into the empty beaker. Hidan, although standing a good few feet away from her, jumped back a step or two as though she had some sort of contagious disease. Deidara looked away from her hastily, as did Kisame. Zetsu hadn't really been looking at her in the first place, but Itachi's eyes stayed looking at a fixed point near her temple. Sakura was at once both aware and yet unaware of this, in any case as unable to halt her sobs at will as she had been able to cease her hyperventilating after she had awoken and first seen Deidara, Hidan, Kisame and Itachi, earlier.

Konan gave her a look that was both pitying and comforting at the same time, and ignoring Sakura's feeble attempt to cower away from the physical contact, brushed her pink hair back with one hand and fished out a tissue from her Akatsuki cloak, handing it to Sakura, who wiped her eyes roughly, but to avail: the waterfall wouldn't stop, and every time she got of one lot of tears, more came welling up and spilling over.

Halfway through this silent crying bout, Deidara and Hidan crept out of the room relatively unnoticed, pretending not to see Konan's dark look, or hear her grit her teeth in a way that suggested that while she didn't particularly need them hanging around, she didn't want them running away because they couldn't handle a few tears. The origami expert hoped dearly that there would be a good few more of these incidents – it would show that Sakura was healing not just physically, but emotionally too.

Zetsu followed Hidan and Deidara's lead a few moments after they'd disappeared, although he winced and almost changed his mind at Konan's near-growl. Sakura couldn't care less about who left. She would have preferred them all to leave, for it all to be a dream, but she had to face facts: this was as real as it got, and there was no going back now.

That was when Haruno Sakura decided that she had wiped her eyes dry for the last time: she wouldn't shed another single, solitary tear about her predicament or her previous ordeal. She didn't want to be _weak_, not anymore. _Haven't I spent my whole life trying to be strong?I keep thinking I am, and then I prove myself wrong._

Looking Konan straight in the eyes, she asked her the question Itachi had told her the older kunoichi would answer for her.

"W-why have you started to heal me?" Her voice wasn't wavering through fear, but the after-effects of her crying fit. Konan mouth opened, and then closed again. She hesitated, looking to Itachi as if for approval, even though she was technically of a higher level in the Akatsuki than him. Sakura craned her neck to see his reaction, which was the faintest of shrugs. If she hadn't been purposely looking for movement on his part, she would have missed it. Konan gave a heavy sigh.

"We think, Sakura," She said carefully, obviously unsure of how to word what she wanted to say. "We think that you could be...useful to us."

Sakura didn't need to ask how. "You want information." She stated flatly. Konan nodded.

"Yes, that _would_ be a great help to our cause. But we, that is to say, Leader and I," At the word 'Leader', Konan's voice became even softer than it had been before, leaving Sakura in no doubt that Konan and 'Leader' were _very _well-acquainted. Not that it troubled her at all. It was no business of hers. "We think, Sakura, based on what we know of you from information supplied to us by certain spies and also what we've read in the most recent bingo book -" Here, Sakura frowned. She was in a bingo book? She couldn't remember that. Surely not... She felt the room spin around her as she tried to recall the information. She could barely recollect what Konan had just said to her.

"We think you'd be a great asset, Sakura." Konan's simply-phrased words ran through Sakura's head with only the barest hint of the sentence registering. "So we were wondering..." Again, she pause, unsure of whether to say her next words or not. The room blurred around Sakura, and she struggled to make out and focus on Konan's face in the haze. "Would you consider joining Akatsuki?"

The proposal certainly came as a shock to Sakura, who had expected to be kept as a hostage at best, but she was in no fit state to comment. For one thing, she might have heard the woman wrong – her hearing felt disjointed and odd – and for another, she didn't think she could use the muscles necessary to open her mouth to respond to the offer.

A moment later, she realised her prayer to Kami had come true – that herbal painkilling stuff really was some good sh –

Konan sighed. She guessed that the answer to that question would have to wait. She looked up at Kisame and Itachi, only to find that they had disappeared. It was then, not for the first time, that Konan felt like curling up in a ball and crying her eyes out.


	3. New Horizons

**Illusions of Innocence**

**Chapter Three – New Horizons**

**Please R&R!**

**XOXOX**

_**I might have nowhere left to go,**_

_**But I know that I cannot go home,**_

_**These voices trapped inside my head **_

_**Tell me to run before I'm dead.**_

**XOXOX**

"What's up with you, Itachi? I mean, I know you don't like to chat, but you haven't blinked in, like, an hour." Kisame was beginning to worry a little. Itachi had said nothing since they had run away from – no, they hadn't run away, they had _left_, Kisame reminded himself firmly – Konan and Sakura. The lack of speech wasn't unusual when it came to Itachi's habits, but even the Uchiha tended to blink every now and then, albeit not as often as a normal person would.

"Hn." Itachi grunted non-committally, blinking once before reverting to his previous, statue-still state. Kisame sighed, still no closer to finding out what Itachi was thinking.

"Life around you, huh? There's never a dull moment." Kisame said after a few more minutes of complete and utter silence.

Itachi did not reply. Kisame decided to play a game of noughts and crosses. On his own.

**XOXOX**

Konan stepped out of the room Sakura lay in, now decisively unconscious thanks to Zetsu's herbal painkiller-slash-sedative concoction, planning to return in a few hours to see if the frail kunoichi had woken. There was now the small matter of clearing everything with Pein. She had been lying to Sakura when she had said that she _and_ Pein had considered offering Sakura a place in the Akatsuki, and she could only hope that he'd understand her decision and not retract the offer, which he would be well within his rights to do.

She hurried off down the corridor, glancing in at all the rooms she passed, searching for her partner. He was nowhere to be found. As she headed back to her and Pein's room, an uncharacteristic annoyance nagging at her, she saw that the door was slightly ajar.

"Pein! When did you get back?" She asked, jogging over to the room and stepping inside, being careful to avoid the scrolls littering the floor. Tidying up could come later.

"About half an hour ago." Pein answered, studying her face. "What's wrong, Konan?"

Konan had to smile at this. He knew her so well: there were no secrets between them. Well, not many.

"No one's told you, then?" She asked. Pein's perplexed look was answer enough. "Hidan and Deidara found Haruno Sakura, close to death and brought her back. We managed to save her. Kami knows where Itachi learnt medical ninjutsu."

"She'll be useful." Pein said, taking his Akatsuki cloak off and draping it over the bedpost. Konan sighed and resisted the urge to go and hang it up neatly.

"Yes, but...that's not all." She said after a moment's hesitation. Pein looked at her expectantly. "I...I offered to let her join Akatsuki."

There was a long pause. Pein's eyebrows rose a little.

"Right. Why?" His tone gave away none of his feelings towards Konan's confession.

"I don't know. I feel so sorry for her – she's obviously been hurt badly by someone, tortured. She's so young. Besides," She became more practical, "We need more members and she's...well, she's another woman. Strong, too."

Pein nodded, and Konan breathed a sigh of relief as his expression softened.

"Okay, fine. If she agrees, she can stay. If she says no, we have to kill her. Agreed?"

Konan frowned. She didn't really want Sakura to die, but she guessed it was the most she was going to get from Pein at the moment. She hadn't expected to talk him around so easily. She hadn't really done much persuading at all. A little worried that Sakura would refuse to join the criminal organisation she had grown up learning to despise, Konan nodded reluctantly.

"Alright. I agree." She said, biting her lip slightly.

"Now that's all sorted, why don't we get down to the more important things?" Pein gave Konan a suggestive smirk. Konan grinned, shaking her head fondly. _That's why he didn't put up a decent fight._

**XOXOX**

As she woke again, Sakura was aware of a number of things. One, she was in the Akatsuki base. Two, the leader's partner had suggested she join said criminal organisation hell-bent on hunting down and killing one of her closest friends. Three, it really was a complete miracle one of her broken ribs hadn't punctured her lungs and killed her.

With a sigh, and a wince at the pain that action induced, Sakura drew on her chakra supply that had slowly been replenished whilst she had been asleep. Cautiously, she healed her ribs and her ankle, moulding the bones back into position carefully, and then sat up hesitantly. She exhaled in relief as nothing cracked or snapped again. Taking a good look around the small room to make sure no one was around to watch her feeble attempts, Sakura struggled to her feet, using the arm of the couch as leverage.

As she took small steps out of the room, she wondered if she could find the bathroom alone. She stank. Over fourteen days without a shower tended to do that to you. She couldn't help shuddering. An aching pain coursed through her body. It wasn't unbearable, like the agony she had gone through when she had woken up the first time. She guessed Zetsu's wonder-potion must not have worn off completely.

Shuffling along the corridor, Sakura peered into the first room she came across. It looked like a communal living room and was completely deserted. She shook her head and continued on her search for a bathroom with cautious treads. It wouldn't do to go breaking her ankle again so soon after healing a fracture.

Sakura found a small wash room at the far end of the corridor, and seeing the door wide open and the room as empty as the living room she had glanced into before, she stepped inside and locked the door behind her.

It was only when she stepped out of her filthy clothes and under the warm water of the shower that she realised how cold she had been. She stood with her arms wrapped around her body, staring at her already-scabbing wounds in the steaming-up mirror opposite the shower. Letting the water cascade down her back, saturating her hair and stinging her injuries, she thought about Konan's offer.

_Join the Akatsuki? They're violent criminals who want to kill my best friend, for Kami's sake! _Even as she thought it, she realised her point was invalid. She was also, much as she hated to admit it, trained to be a violent criminal who murdered and stole for her country. This knowledge wasn't particularly comforting to her. It was one less reason as to why she should never join the evil organisation. They had healed her. They should have just killed her when they found her, and made everything a whole lot simpler, she thought bitterly.

With a sudden jolt, Sakura noticed her abdomen. Where_ that _signhad been. The blood had been wiped away, by one of the Akatsuki, she assumed, but a faint outline remained. What did it say? Blood? Death? Torture? She read it, expecting one of the standard torture symbols.

Then, as she realised, she wheeled backwards, slamming her head into the back of the shower, knocking the mirror from its place on the wall with her hands. It smashed into tiny pieces as it hit the floor, littering the tiled surface with shards of glass. _Seven years bad luck._ Sakura couldn't bring herself to be upset over a stupid superstition. Instead, she stared at the now-blank wall, water still falling on her, as she tried desperately not to cry, as she had vowed.

Triumph.

Was that what her humiliation and ordeal had been to her tormentors? A triumph? A triumph over the Hokage. An attempt to score extra points, to further crush Konoha's weak infrastructure. Eliminate all threats. Would the Hokage herself be next? Sakura shuddered at that thought. Her vision blurred and reddened with rage. She felt her frail hold on sanity and normality snap cleanly in half.

How dare they do this to her mentor? To her?

It was the frantic knocking at the door that made Sakura snap back to reality. She had no idea how much time had passed or even what was going on. All she could see was blood, glass, water and rubble. Her eyes widened as she took in her surroundings.

_Have I...done all this?_

She shook her head at the sight of the blood dripping from her hands to the floor, staining the previously clean white tiles.

"Hey!" The voice was male, hesitant yet insistent. "Hey, are you okay, un?"

"Get the fuck away from there, blondie, I'll try."

Sakura heard someone being shoved to the side, and another 'negotiator' had a shot. "Get the fuck out of there. If you've done any fucking damage I swear to fucking -"

"Hidan! For Kami's sake, that's not going to help, you idiot. Hey, Pinkie, come on. It's okay, we aren't gonna get mad at you."

Sakura couldn't bring herself to speak. If she had felt capable, she would have told him where he could shove the nickname he'd just given her. Instead, she stayed silent. Slowly, she worked out that the rushing noise in her ear that had been bothering her unconsciously for a while was the shower, which was still on. Making hardly a sound, she reached and switched it off.

"Come on!" The first voice whispered. Sakura assumed it was Deidara. "I think she's going to come out now."

"And _I _think that 'she' can most probably hear everything you say about her."

Sakura's blood ran cold as this new voice joined the fray. Uchiha Itachi. When Deidara spoke again, his voice sounded as hostile as Sakura felt.

"Itachi. Don't tell me -" Deidara began, only to be cut off by the Uchiha.

"Sakura." He said smoothly. Sakura frowned. What was it about him? He was the only one out of the male Akatsuki members she had met so far to actually use her name. She doubted any of the other Akatsuki could make it sound so good, either.

Sakura repressed a growl. Damn him. Damn the evil bastard to hell for all eternity. Trying to fuck with her mind! She'd had enough of being used and manipulated. He was just like the others, worse than the others.

"Sakura, you cannot stay in there forever. Be rational. Get dressed and come out." He sounded quite charming, actually. Very persuasive. Sakura had never once thought that the monster that was Itachi could be charming when he so wished. The tone seemed strange to her ears, a little off coming from a person such as himself. Maybe she wouldn't have noticed if she didn't have the knowledge of what he'd done over ten years ago lurking in the back of her mind constantly.

She was reaching for her filthy, ripped clothes before she had processed what she was doing. She was going to go out there and remind herself that Uchiha Itachi was not in the least bit charming, and if the opportunity to punch him in the face arose, she would not be forsaking it.

She didn't speak a word as she dressed and unlocked the door, the light from the window indicating it was mid-afternoon, around two or three o' clock. Sakura stared up at the four Akatsuki, three of whom looked slightly embarrassed, but one of whom was merely considering her with a raised eyebrow.

_See: he is most definitely not 'charming'._ Sakura glared back at Itachi.

Just as the right moment for the punch loomed closer to arising, Konan hurried around the corner, flanked by the man who could only be the leader – Pein. Sakura suddenly felt incredibly bad about the wash room she had wrecked with her bare hands.

"Sakura! I heard that awful noise. Are you okay?" Konan rushed over to Sakura, who blinked a few times, trying to remember how to make her vocal chords work. When she finally managed to choke a few words out, her voice sounded rusty, as if it was seldom used.

"I'm...fine." She said. "I'm...you know, sorry about the room..." She gestured with bloodied hands towards the debris of the once neat and ordered bathroom. "I'll help fix it if you want...I'll be spending a lot more time here."

"You're staying?" Konan asked, almost incredulously. Sakura nodded. Deidara and Hidan looked just as dumbfounded, but Sakura noticed that Itachi and Kisame exchanged an odd look that Sakura couldn't make head nor tail of. She decided to ignore them.

Ignoring Sakura's suddenly horrified look, Konan hugged the young kunoichi.

Sakura's surprising saviour from forced physical contact was none other than the Uchiha prodigy.

"Let her go, Konan; she needs to sort her hands out." He said without a trace of emotion on his face or in his voice. Gone was the ubiquitous charm, and Sakura for one was glad. It helped her remember that he was, and could only ever be a homicidal sociopath. As she extricated herself from the older woman's embrace, she had a feeling she would need to cling onto that knowledge in the weeks, and even months, to come.

**XOXOX**

**A/N: Hmm, what's Sakura hiding about her torturers? All will be revealed next time, I promise, so keep please keep reading.**

**TIMELINE (There are some spoilers in the next paragraph.)**

**If you're confused about the timeline, this is an AT (Alternate Timeline) fic. Not an AU, though. It's set in canon up until the Uchiha fight (Itachi and Sasuke), which in my fic happens as the manga version, except Madara is not involved and Sasuke does not know of his existence. Also, Itachi dies in the manga, but faked his death in my fic. He went back to Akatsuki. Sasuke did not join the Akatsuki after the fight, but we'll find out more about him as the fic goes on. Madara will appear later on in this fic. Nagato has not been revealed, and Konoha has not been invaded. Deidara and Hidan are alive because...well, I needed them. Epic plothole there, but the fact that they are alive and not dead as they are in the manga doesn't really affect the story.**

**Sorry if Konan seems OOC. I'd give loads of reasons why she's acting like this, but I think some people would get bored. This is already a massive A/N. Sorry. But if you want to know the reasons, just ask in a review.**


	4. Shattered Lines

**Illusions of Innocence**

**Chapter Four – Shattered Lines**

**Please R&R!**

**XOXOX**

_**No, se puede vivir con tanto veneno,**_

_**No se puede dedicar el alma,**_

_**Acumalar intentos**_

_**Pesa mes la rabia que el cemento.**_

_No, one cannot live with so much poison,_

_One should not dedicate the soul,_

_To collecting intentions_

_Rage weighs heavier than cement._

**XOXOX**

"Damn it! Not again." For the fifth time that night, Kisame pushed his chair away from the table dramatically, his speech theatrically indignant. The reigning chess champion of Akatsuki, one Uchiha Itachi, began to collect the pieces up without a word. He would never voice his thoughts, but he often wished for a better chess partner. Unfortunately, only Kisame was stupid enough to put himself up to losing again and again, in the vain hope that he would one day outsmart the genius of the Uchiha clan.

"I'm going to bed." Kisame said cheerfully, losing five times having done nothing whatsoever to quell his good-spirits. "See you later."

"Hn." Itachi replied, lining the chess pieces up neatly on the glass board. Kisame rolled his eyes jokingly and exited the room. Itachi knew there was another presence with him in the room, and he recognised the chakra signature immediately. He stayed quiet, waiting for the one standing directly behind him to speak first.

"I could beat you anytime." Haruno Sakura said, a scant hint of amusement buried within the confident statement.

"Hn." Itachi responded, gesturing to the chair opposite him, which Kisame had previously occupied. Sakura moved around and took the seat offered to her. Even in her emaciated state, she had a certain grace to her, he noticed without any particular feeling. She hadn't put on much weight, and although she _had_ only been at the Akatsuki base for a week or so, Itachi knew Konan wished Sakura would eat something other than the instant ramen she appeared to favour above all other foodstuffs. He personally couldn't care less. If she wanted to starve herself, let her.

Itachi looked at the girl, remembering her from the first time he'd seen her, over two years ago now, and tried to reconcile the withdrawn and scarred kunoichi who still had the audacity to proclaim that she could beat him at something, with the naïve child who had been too scared to even look at his clone, over two years ago now. Haruno Sakura was, Itachi decided, one of nature's oddities. Rather like himself.

He waited for Sakura, who was using the white pieces, to make her move before he chose his own. A question formulated in his mind as they began the game. It was a question he knew he would end up asking Sakura; he hated any lack of knowledge whatsoever on his part.

They continued quietly with the game for a while, the only sounds being Sakura's hissed profanities when she lost a piece to Itachi, which admittedly wasn't very often.

**XOXOX**

When Kisame awoke in the morning, he sat up in confusion, glancing around. There were no chakra signatures in the room apart from his own. He looked over to Itachi's bed. It was still freshly made from the previous day. Whilst this wasn't too unusual in itself – Itachi rarely slept in his bed – the fact that Itachi wasn't even in the room was slightly untoward. He knew what he would find before he even looked over to the couch Sakura slept on. No one. No hint that anyone but Kisame had actually entered the room since he had gone to sleep around ten hours ago.

His curiosity piqued, he hauled himself out of bed and got dressed, before heading straight downstairs, almost crashing into Hidan on his way there. The Jashinist was dripping blood after one of his rituals, presumably. Kisame checked his clothes for any hint of red liquid, but thankfully, he could not find any.

Hidan's face was unusually animated. The normally sadistic individual was almost distinguishably cheerful.

"Hey, Shark-boy, I was just looking for someone to confirm I'm not dreaming," He stifled a smirk, "Come with me."

Further intrigued (and still slightly concerned), Kisame followed Hidan down the corridor to the Akatsuki's main living area. He stopped short as he caught sight of the mirror reflecting what was going on in the living room. He saw Sakura and Itachi, and a chessboard.

Well, it was slightly less alarming than what he had been imagining.

"Fucking hell, not another one."

If Kisame had not seen Sakura's lips move in the mirror, he would never have guessed that the tiny little _girl_ approved of, let alone _used_ such language. He couldn't see Itachi's expression in the mirror, nor what was going on on the chessboard itself, but it was pretty clear that Itachi had just taken a piece from her.

"How long have they been, uh, playing?" He asked Hidan in a low voice, just as Sakura's voice hissed another set of profanities, this time personally insulting Itachi. Kisame and Hidan craned their necks to get a better view of the imminent and inevitable death of Haruno Sakura via a cracked mirror. They were to be disappointed. Itachi said nothing whatsoever.

"Uh," Hidan began to reply to Kisame's earlier question, "I got up at half-four to perform the ritual, and they were already there. So it must have been...since yesterday night?"

Both shinobi wondered for a few moments about whether this could get into the record books as the longest game of chess ever.

"Sakura."

Both shinobi stopped in the middle of their thoughts as Itachi said Sakura's name. They glanced at each other. Itachi hadn't spoken a word since they'd stopped to listen. What could the man of notoriously few words have to say to Sakura?

**XOXOX**

"Sakura."

Sakura cursed Itachi, in thought only this time. Why did he have to keep saying her name? And what the hell was it that made her so annoyed by that?

"Hm?" She replied, although she was in no doubt that he would continue speaking whether she indicated her permission or not.

"Why have you joined the Akatsuki?" The question was blunt. It would seem that Uchiha Itachi did not do tact.

Sakura frowned, continuing their game without concentration, her hand moving her castle along automatically. What _had _been behind her decision? She knew, deep down in her heart, why she had done it, but donkeys would inherit the planet before she'd reveal them to Itachi.

"Ask me when I know the real answer," She said vaguely, her hand shaking a little as she pushed another piece forward.

"Very well. Oh, and Sakura? Checkmate." Itachi took her king with his remaining queen, and disappeared with only a few ravens to show that he'd actually been there in the first place. Sakura turned to face the door and spotted Kisame and Hidan, who were staring raptly at the mirror in which they had watched the scene unfold. Her forehead twitched slightly.

It was that day that the Akatsuki realised that in the cussing-out stakes, Hidan had well and truly met his match.

**XOXOX**

As Zetsu stepped into his haven, the conservatory in which he nurtured his plants, he sensed another presence. He took a few steps forwards, and turned to see Sakura sitting in the midst of the flowers with a notebook and a ballpoint pen, a hint of a smile gracing her lips.

He cleared his throat, and she looked up. She seemed to have been unaware of his presence up until that point. Whether that was indicative of her weakness as a kunoichi or whether she had just been

too wrapped up in her work to be bothered to pay attention to him, he could not say.

"Sorry to intrude, Zetsu-san," She apologised quickly, not sounding particularly sorry at all, he noted, "I just wanted to see what herbs and medicines you have here."

Zetsu shrugged, not wanting to scare her witless with his split personality. She wasn't used to it yet. It was then that he noticed the baby's breath she had tied into strands of her pink-hued hair. Sakura saw his gaze and its direction, and pointed to the flowers.

"_Gypsophila paniculata_," She said, using the flower's Latin name, "Do you grow it for pleasure or do you find it has medical properties?"

"Well, you see, I often find..." Zetsu started, beginning to warm to the topic as Sakura scribbled down his every word at lightning speed, an expression of fierce concentration on her face.

**XOXOX**

Sakura shivered. Not from the cold, although it was February and the frosts had not yet lifted. No. Sakura could feel the weight of Itachi's stare on her, and it unnerved her. It was bad enough that she had to share a bedroom with the criminal and his partner, but the staring she could barely handle. It took all her willpower not to get off the couch she had made her regular bed on and attempt to smash his face in.

_Attempt_ being the operative word, as Itachi would undoubtedly manage to murder her before she even got one chakra-laden punch in.

She was so tired. Sakura had never experienced this raw, gnawing insomnia that tore at her very insides, even after Sasuke had left. She had been running through her first week as an official

Akatsuki member on chakra and adrenaline alone, and she knew she was on the fast-track to a spectacular burn-out. But she couldn't risk going to sleep. Not with the ghosts of the past few weeks hanging over her like a dark cloud. She had a terrible fear that things would never get better, and she would never sleep again. How could she? She didn't understand anything about her torture. Why? Why had her tormentors done it? They weren't _meant_ to be so cruel.

_Then again, Uchiha Itachi wasn't supposed to be evil and look how he turned out._ The sentence didn't form itself exactly like that in her head, so exhausted was she. _I'm not going to be able to get up one morning, _she realised with a jolt. Her energy would slowly slip away as she lay in her hazy wakefulness, still full of revulsion and bitterness about all that had happened to her until she finally succumbed to a sleep-deprived death.

_I don't want to...die so...easily. Not yet._

Before her brain had fully processed the action, Sakura was getting out of bed. She found she didn't give a fuck about Itachi staring at her in the darkness anymore. She just knew that she had to do something drastic. She didn't care – something that would help her forget for awhile, anything that would build her strength up to what it had been before, to surpass her former standards for herself, even.

She sprinted as best she could from the room, ignoring the sudden stabbing pain in her ankle. She flew down the stairs and into the kitchen, where she halted in front of the table.

Hungry.

Sakura wanted food. And not just the instant ramen she had eaten twice a day for a week. _Real _food. She pulled open the cupboards, her gaze skimming over the tins, the packets, the loose vegetables. She'd been deluded, this past week, to think it was a tribute to one of her saviours to eat nothing but his favourite food.

"Sakura."

Sakura jumped, then shook herself mentally. It was only that mass-clan-killing-twisted-genius-bastard again. And even at half past two in the morning, he managed to make her name sound good. Sakura repressed a low growl as she turned to face Itachi.

"What?" She ground out the word like the worst expletive imaginable. Itachi remained completely unaffected by her evident contempt.

"Tea?" He gestured towards the kettle. Sakura stared at him for a few moments, bemused. "Or would you prefer coffee, perhaps?" Itachi asked. Sakura cleared her throat, remembering how to move her lips to speak.

"Uh, tea's fine." She said, her tone noticeably more polite. When Sakura was polite to people she detested, it usually meant she was a little scared or freaked-out, although she would never admit that to herself. Itachi simply nodded and walked past her to get to the kettle. Sakura tried not to be too suspicious of his odd behaviour. _He is _not _charming._

She went back to the thoughts of food, refusing to let someone like Uchiha Itachi quench her sudden desire to live.

When she found brown rice in the cupboard, she went to the fridge, where she dragged out some chicken. Chicken and rice. It was better than miso ramen day in, day out.

Sakura felt strange as she cooked the chicken and boiled the rice. Who would ever have thought that she would be cooking in the same kitchen as Uchiha Itachi, whilst he calmly made tea without even raising an eyebrow at the late-night cookery session Sakura was staging? Certainly not herself.

When she sat down with her spontaneous meal, Itachi was already there, pouring tea for them both. Sakura took the cup he offered her without a word. She took a sip, then put the cup down beside her plate and picked up the pair of disposable chopsticks (the only form of clean cutlery she had managed to find in the entire kitchen). Sakura acknowledged in that moment that she was not the best cook in the world. Stabbing a piece of slightly-charred chicken gingerly, she brought it to her lips, studiously ignored Itachi, whose eyes were trained on her face, studying her.

It tasted okay. Actually, it was better than that. Before she knew it, Sakura had cleared her plate. She met Itachi's lingering eyes defiantly, feeling properly fed for the first time in almost a month.

"What?" She asked for the second time that night. He gave a small shrug.

"Nothing."

She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt – as long as he stopped looking at her. She got up and took her plate and cup to the sink, tossing the chopsticks into the dustbin as she walked by.

"Sakura." Again, not a question. She answered regardless, slightly sharper than was perhaps necessary.

"Yes?"

"Who was it who gave you those scars?"

Sakura went cold all over. "W-what?" She gasped, spinning to face him, hoping she'd misheard him. She wasn't prepared to talk about that.

"You heard." He sounded only vaguely interested in her answer, as though he were inquiring after a distant relative's health. Sakura looked at him. That arrogant expression...

"You – you know?" Her hands gripped the kitchen worktop behind her tightly. Itachi raised an eyebrow, replying:

"As with the majority of unknown things, I have a hunch."

Sakura took that to mean yes, he did know, but he was being an asshole. She took a step forwards, hands balled into fists.

"You want to know the truth?" She screamed at him, not caring who she woke, not caring what time of morning it was. "You all want to know who tortured me? Fine then, I tell you – it was Konoha!

"Konoha tortured me."

**XOXOX**

**Until next time.**


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